Catherine Coulter - Split Second

Savich heard Billy the Cop say to Lucy, “Do you know, Agent, you have no idea how pissed off my guys in the BPD are going to be at you and your buddies. It might be best if you left right now, before they get here.”

Ollie came down over Savich. “How is she?”

“Unconscious. At least she wasn’t shot, but I’m worried she’s overdosed. Where are the ambulances?”

Ollie dropped down on his haunches. “They’ll get here soon. There’s no sign of Kirsten. What do you want me to do, Savich?”

“Help Coop with Comafield. He’s our only lead to Kirsten. I don’t want him dying on us.”

Coop looked over at Lucy when she said to Billy, “You’re doing great, Billy. I gotta say, though, you’ve really got sucky luck. I mean, here you are out for a night of fun, and a maniac guns you down. Sorry about that.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Anyone dead?”

“No, thank heavens, just a couple of walking wounded.”

“So why were all you FBI here?”

“I’ll tell you something, Billy. The woman who got away?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s Ted Bundy’s daughter.”

Billy cursed a blue streak, surprise mixing with pain. “We all knew she was out there, but not here, not in Baltimore. That was really her? Right here, at my neighborhood bar? I can’t believe I missed that.”

People being people, they began to slip out of the bar again once everything quieted down. They blocked the street, milling around when the ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, the cop sirens blending in. People who drove by slowed down to see what was going on, and others were hanging out of neighboring windows, asking what was happening. Even when the ambulances pulled close, few of them seemed to want to get out of the way.

It was a zoo until Ollie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Every one of you step back inside or I’m making arrests!”

Finally most people moved aside so the EMTs could get through.

Savich heard Coop call out, “Here first!” and saw Coop was pressing both palms hard on Comafield’s belly.

Savich shouted, “How bad, Coop?”

“It’s going to be close, Savich. He’s shot in the abdomen, and there was blood and intestinal juice coming out. I can’t control the bleeding; it’s going to take an operation to do that. The other bullet went in and out of his arm, no big deal. Still, he’s going to be luckier than most of God’s creatures if he makes it. What about Sherlock?”

“She’s in and out,” Savich said, wiping her mouth.

And then she whispered, “Did she get away?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it now. How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“We screwed up.” She pulled out of his arms, doubled over again with cramps and dry heaves.

That was true enough, Savich thought, gathering Sherlock against him once her cramps had lessened. They’d held their fire because of the crowd, but it didn’t matter, they all looked like incompetents.

Jack Crowne pushed through the crowd around them, saying, “FBI, let me through.” He came down on his haunches. “How are you, Sherlock?”

She said, “I sure wish we could replay that whole deal.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Lucy said, still crouched beside Billy the Cop, and then she blinked. “Yes, I really wish we could.” She raised her face to the sky. “Do you know a raindrop hit my nose. What more could we ask for?”

Coop was hovering next to the EMTs. “Take good care of him, we really need him. He’s our spigot.”

When the EMTs were ready to move Comafield, Coop stepped back, watched then slip a collapsible gurney under him, and lift him on its wheels and into the ambulance.

“Really, guys, take good care of him,” Coop said to them. “We need that man.”

Other ambulances had arrived, their EMTs spreading out to care for the other wounded.

It started raining hard.

And Savich prayed no one would die as a result of this fiasco. He huddled over Sherlock while they lifted her onto a gurney and put her in an ambulance. They said nothing at all when he jumped in after her.

Baltimore General Hospital

Wednesday night

Savich stood over his sleeping wife. He hated her pallor, hated that her eyelids looked bruised. He knew intellectually she was going to be all right; the doctors had assured him of that at least three times. But that assurance didn’t seem to matter to that place deep inside him that knew he would curl up and die if something happened to her. A nurse appeared at his elbow, lightly touched his arm. “You look worse than she does, Agent Savich. I swear to you, your wife will be fine. Her throat is going to feel a bit bludgeoned, but that won’t last long, maybe a day or two.”

He nodded. What had she seen on his face? Fear? All right, Sherlock would be fine, no reason for her not to be. The nurse wouldn’t lie, would she? They’d pumped her stomach, and her blood pressure was back to normal. They said the drugs were short-acting, and their effects were wearing off.

They’d soon know for sure if Kirsten had used the same drugs on Sherlock as she had on her other victims. The symptoms were right. He wondered if Kirsten had given Sherlock an extra-large dose.

Ruth walked into the room, handed Savich a cup of hot tea, a cup of coffee in her other hand. Good old hospital cafeteria Lipton, he thought, savoring the hot, bitter taste. He saluted her with his cup. They both looked down at Sherlock, her glorious hair, clips removed, now a wild nimbus around her pale face. He pulled the sheet over the green hospital gown to Sherlock’s shoulders, smoothed it out. “She’ll be okay,” he said, more to himself than to Ruth. Then he said it again. “She’ll be okay, Ruth.”

Ruth touched her fingers to his forearm. “Yes, she will, Dillon. The nurse told me to repeat that to you myself until you believe it. Sherlock’s a trouper, she’s got a gold-plated engine of a heart. She’ll be okay, so stop worrying.” But Ruth knew he couldn’t help but worry; she was worried herself, impossible not to be, as she looked down at her. Sherlock was always so full of energy; she radiated a kind of life force you could practically reach out and touch. But lying here now, she looked almost insubstantial, like a pale copy of herself.

Ruth said, “I nabbed a nurse as she came out of the OR. She said Comafield’s intestines are a mess but that his surgeon is the best they’ve got, and that was all she could tell me. She looked worried, Dillon.”

“He’ll make it,” Coop said from the doorway. “People like him always make it.” He walked to the bed and stared down at Sherlock for a moment, touched her hand, then nodded at both Ruth and Savich and walked back to the surgical waiting room. He looked for Lucy, but she wasn’t in the waiting room; she’d moved away to sit off by herself halfway down the hall where there was another small grouping of chairs. Her head was down. It looked to him like she was staring at her sneakers.

He went down on his knees in front of her, took her hands in his. Her skin felt clammy. “Hey, Lucy, what’s going on?”

Her head jerked up, but she wasn’t there, she looked as though she were a million miles away, and where she was, he thought, was a mad and lonely place—and where was this place? He couldn’t stand to see that look, couldn’t stand that she was so far apart from everyone. From him. He’d known her for only six and a half months, not long at all in the scheme of things, but he realized at that moment he didn’t want her to hide herself from him. He realized in that moment that she was perhaps the one human being with whom he wanted to share his life. He rocked back on his heels. How had this happened? It didn’t matter; it had happened, and he accepted it, relished it. He waited, said nothing.